Weapon Master
by Sintari
Summary: A girl becomes a kunoichi. A kunoichi becomes a weapon master. A Tenten centered oneshot.


**_Title: Weapon Master_**

_**Author: Sintari**_

_**Rating: M**_

**_Warnings: Sexual violence and plain old violence of the hurt-you-bad variety. Seriously, heed the warning._**

_**Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto**_

**_Gladiator-Inspired Summary: A girl become a kunoichi. A kunoichi becomes a weapon master. _**

_**Written for TentenChan from LJ, because I once promised her…**_

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Rape is a crime where sex is the weapon. We learned that in the Academy. In Third Year, to be exact. Of course, I learned it long before then.

We were still living in the cove where I was born. It was in the North, about five kilometers up the mountain from a mining village called Morikami. You don't know it? Oh, but I think you do.

My father worked the mines, on the owl shift, which meant that he had to leave my mother and us kids home alone at night. The only way for someone like him – a peasant with no education and no skills – to make a living, you see, was to rely on his strong back. He used to say, "Bury me standing up, because I've been on my knees my whole life."

It was cold on that mountain almost all year round. That's the thing I remember the most about my first eight years of life – feeling cold and feeling hungry. The mines pay by the ton, not by the hour.

I suppose the bandits were cold and hungry, too. If they wanted to be warm and well-fed, they had chosen the wrong place to hole up for the winter. A search party later found their discarded camp in one of the abandoned mine shafts.

This is starting to sound more familiar, isn't it?

I guess they saw the smoke from our fire. Maybe they hid in the forest until they saw father start down the mountain with his pick. A lone woman and her four young children must have seemed like an easy target in that remote place.

I'm not exactly sure how it started. Some parts of it are hazy. But I remember other parts of the attack like it just happened this morning.

Stop that. If you move around, it will only hurt more.

But where was I?

The wind turned cold that night, and because I was the oldest, it fell to me to run fetch a bucket of our homemade charcoal from the shed. I left my mother in the kitchen, nursing the baby. My little brother and sister, the twins, were already asleep in the bed they insisted on sharing. I suppose the bandits didn't see me leave the house because I was so small and it was so dark by that time.

For whatever reason, I was probably lost in my little girl daydreams, I didn't hear the bandits enter the house. I only realized something was wrong when I heard the baby suddenly cry, and then just as suddenly stop. Even then, suspicious that something was wrong, I held the bucket handle tightly. I didn't want to be scolded for wasting charcoal. Can you imagine? I was such a good little girl.

I walked in the house, still clutching the bucket. Do you know the first thing I thought? It was, "Wow, I've never seen my mother with her hair down." She always wore it in two buns, just like I wear mine now. From where I stood in the doorway, I saw that one of the men, the bald one, had pulled the pins out when he forced her down. He yanked so hard that locks of hair came out in his fists. Even the most superficial of scalp wounds bleed profusely, of course, and there was blood on her face. That I do remember.

I was horror struck, still standing there, the bucket handle digging into my palm. The baby lay beside her on the floor. He looked funny, and he wasn't moving.

Then my little sister started screaming.

The twins were born early, as twins often are. But while Ryota was bright and caught on to things quickly, Aiko had a hard time learning the simplest things. Some would say she was slow, but we never called her that. She was just different. For one thing, she was patient. She could have sat and brushed my hair out for hours if I had let her. Of course, I never did. In a family like mine – we all had short tempers – we needed a calming influence like Aiko. Looking back, I can honestly say that she was the best of us.

Rape is a crime where sex is the weapon.

My sister was six years old when a man with two long scars down the left side of his face and neck raped her until she almost died.

Do you know where my sister is now? She never recovered. She's in a catatonic state. She lives in an asylum for the mentally ill down south. I pay for it out of my shinobi wages.

My little brother is away, too. But the territorial government of the Fire Country pays for his room and board. He'll probably get out of prison in a few years if he can control that famous temper. But I can't really blame him for being angry all the time. Imagine watching your twin go through something like that.

My father found the house like that the next morning. Our food stores were gone, the baby was dead, my mother wounded. My sister remained unconscious and my brother was paralyzed, still lying on the bed in a puddle of his own urine. They told him if he moved that they would kill us, you see.

Of me, the only sign he found was the charcoal bucket lying the yard. I came home that afternoon, though, when I was too cold and hungry to hide in the forest any longer.

It was hard on my father, not being there to protect us. He started drinking heavily and staying out for days at a time. Eventually he left altogether. My mother remarried. What else could she do? What was left of us would have starved if she hadn't. My step-father moved us to Konoha, where I discovered that I possessed the talent to become a shinobi. Someone who can fight back.

What? A deal? Sorry, but you're the last of them. I don't _need _you to talk. Shhhhh!

Oh fuck it, scream all you want. There's no one to hear you anyway.

Rape is a crime where sex is the weapon.

But, as you can see, I've come to prefer the more traditional weapons.

_END_

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A/N: This is a character study of Tenten in the same way that _Smoke_ was a character study of Asuma, meaning that since we know next to nothing about both characters I just made something up. Also, the "Bury me standing…" line is actually a Roma (gypsy) proverb.


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